If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

Comment

I guess there are still no independent volume controls for each application.
How this doesn't seem to bother most people is completely beyond me. The ability to tune down a game slightly while playing some music with an audio player and still being able to clearly hear people talking on teamspeak or skype and not missing pidgin sound notifications is essential for me.

But no, not the way alsa works, I have to use pulseaudio for that. Insanity if you ask me.

Comment

I guess there are still no independent volume controls for each application.
How this doesn't seem to bother most people is completely beyond me. The ability to tune down a game slightly while playing some music with an audio player and still being able to clearly hear people talking on teamspeak or skype and not missing pidgin sound notifications is essential for me.

But no, not the way alsa works, I have to use pulseaudio for that. Insanity if you ask me.

Have you seriously not heard of PulseAudio?

Comment

I guess there are still no independent volume controls for each application.
How this doesn't seem to bother most people is completely beyond me. The ability to tune down a game slightly while playing some music with an audio player and still being able to clearly hear people talking on teamspeak or skype and not missing pidgin sound notifications is essential for me.

But no, not the way alsa works, I have to use pulseaudio for that. Insanity if you ask me.

Maaaaybe because most games have their own volume controls...? As do most non-game apps in general... Really, the ability to control individual app volume isn't all that necessary. It's just a small perk.

Comment

Of course I have heard of pulseaudio. In fact, if you read my last sentence from the original post, it states that I indeed use pulseaudio. But that doesn't change my opinion that for something as basic as proper volume control I should not need to use a complex sound server. I think that is just ridiculous and it's not even that well supported with all apps (yes, I know you can route alsa output through pulseaudio an then back to alsa - which is even more insane).

Additionally, pulseaudio is only around for a few years now. Before that the situation was just as awful and without a possible workaround. I remember hearing about dmix and really looking forward to it back then - but that was a disappointment as well.

It just doesn't fit into my brains that in 2012 it is impossible to have a simple, usable linux sound architecture that actually does what users need (I don't think I'm special in using 2 or 3 programs with sound output at once).

Maaaaybe because most games have their own volume controls...? As do most non-game apps in general... Really, the ability to control individual app volume isn't all that necessary. It's just a small perk.

Games shouldn't need own volume controls (except for mixing their own different outputs, but I believe even that capability should be handled by a sane sound system). And I definitely do not see it as a "small perk" and "not all that necessary". It's not just games, it's listening to music and being able to adjust it's volume without changing the volume of notification sounds (pidgin, konversation, etc) at the same time. But oh well, as I said before, apparently most users don't view it that way, it must be just me who goes nuts when not being able to turn down music volume when watching a short youtube clip.

PS: Oh, a nice anecdote btw: when I first tried to get pulseaudio working, I asked some questions in a channel on freenode - and they couldn't believe I wanted to use pulseausio, they asked at least 5 times if I really really really want to do this - but of course they didn't know another solution for my needs either.

Comment

Of course I have heard of pulseaudio. In fact, if you read my last sentence from the original post, it states that I indeed use pulseaudio. But that doesn't change my opinion that for something as basic as proper volume control I should not need to use a complex sound server. I think that is just ridiculous and it's not even that well supported with all apps (yes, I know you can route alsa output through pulseaudio an then back to alsa - which is even more insane).

Additionally, pulseaudio is only around for a few years now. Before that the situation was just as awful and without a possible workaround. I remember hearing about dmix and really looking forward to it back then - but that was a disappointment as well.

It just doesn't fit into my brains that in 2012 it is impossible to have a simple, usable linux sound architecture that actually does what users need (I don't think I'm special in using 2 or 3 programs with sound output at once).

Games shouldn't need own volume controls (except for mixing their own different outputs, but I believe even that capability should be handled by a sane sound system). And I definitely do not see it as a "small perk" and "not all that necessary". It's not just games, it's listening to music and being able to adjust it's volume without changing the volume of notification sounds (pidgin, konversation, etc) at the same time. But oh well, as I said before, apparently most users don't view it that way, it must be just me who goes nuts when not being able to turn down music volume when watching a short youtube clip.

PS: Oh, a nice anecdote btw: when I first tried to get pulseaudio working, I asked some questions in a channel on freenode - and they couldn't believe I wanted to use pulseausio, they asked at least 5 times if I really really really want to do this - but of course they didn't know another solution for my needs either.

I still don't see why you don't want to use Pulseaudio. Just because some dudes on IRC told you not to?
Seriously, I use Pulseaudio since it was first integrated in Fedora, and I never had a problem with it. I know there were rough edges at the beginning (specially on Ubuntu) but most of the bugs have been sorted out.
Also, I think it's a cleaner design to leave drivers to alsa, and mixing/routing to Pulseaudio. As you said, dmix turned out to be a disappointment, ask yourself why.